[Data-modeling] Which universe is that human from?

[Tim Kientzle]

It seems that you could simplify this in many cases by using
two types instead of one:

1) Human, Elf, etc.

2) "Star Wars Character", "D&D Character", etc.

"Midichlorian level" seems an appropriate property of
a "Star Wars Character", not of "Human."  (Or perhaps
"Midichlorian-having character," to follow an emerging
trend of having single-property mix-in types.)

Of course, there are always ugly exceptions and corner cases that
will demand a very specific type such as
"Human appearing in Volume 3 of XXXX as envisioned by YYY,"
but those should be unusual.

Cheers,

Tim Kientzle


On Mar 31, 2008, at 11:58 AM, Jeff Prucher wrote:

> This is a tricky question. If we do decide that humans in various  
> universes
> are all different, do we also have to have different types for every  
> dang
> type of elf? The elves in Elfquest are different from those in The  
> Lord of
> the Rings, D&D, and The Elves and the Shoemaker. And if I want to  
> query for
> stories which feature members of the (fictional) species Homo  
> superior, it
> would be nice to just query one node; but since every instance of a  
> race
> called "Homo superior" is going to be somewhat different (what with  
> them
> being fictional and all), arguably they should all be different  
> topics.
>
> Just throwing fuel on the fire.
>
> Jeff
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
>> [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of Ed Laurent
>> Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 10:00 PM
>> To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
>> Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Which universe is that human from?
>>
>> This seems to be another example of a topic from one ontology
>> that is similar to but different from another topic from a
>> different ontology. Do humans in the Star Wars universe
>> always have exactly the same properties as humans in the D&D
>> universe? Probably not. For example, do D&D characters have
>> midichlorian (sp?) levels that can be quantified? I would
>> therefore create a separate human topic for each universe and
>> possibly link them if necessary (e.g., in case you want to
>> find all instances of universes with humans, in case you want
>> to compare the traits of humans in one universe to those of
>> another). However, "Overkill" seems to be my middle name...
>>
>> -Ed
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 8:07 PM, Jeff Fry <jfry at metaweb.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> 	There's been conversation before about how confusing it
>> can be that there are many
>> <http://qa.sfo1.metaweb.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f80000000
>> 00b003f6>  human
>> <http://qa.sfo1.metaweb.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f80000000
>> 0025e3ad>  topics
>> <http://qa.sfo1.metaweb.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f80000000
>> 002c0fb0> , most tied to different universes, and one
>> <http://qa.sfo1.metaweb.com/view/en/human>  tragically
>> tethered in our non-fictional universe. Some likely merit it
>> - Humans in the Star Wars and the Dungeons & Dragons
>> universes might well have different properties, and certainly
>> link to different Wikipedia articles.
>> 	
>> 	The topic for our own non-fictional species is the
>> first one in relevance searches, and so many fictional
>> characters (Marcie <http://www.freebase.com/view/en/marcie> ,
>> Spider-Man <http://qa.sfo1.metaweb.com/view/en/spider-man> ,
>> Nancy Drew <http://qa.sfo1.metaweb.com/view/en/nancy_drew> ,
>> etc.) are all linked back to this topic. To make things a bit
>> sillier, someone noted that the Human Character Species is
>> found in the Firefly fictional universe...and so now Ron
>> Weasley, Captain Nemo, and Indiana Jones may well be caught
>> in a crossfire between the Anglo-Sino Alliance and the Reavers.
>> 	
>> 	Cleanup is certainly needed, but I'm not really clear
>> what the model is at this point? Does every universe need
>> it's own Human topic? Probably not. If they don't, should
>> those that don't have their own topic cluster around the
>> topic for the non-fictional species? Or around a generic
>> fictional human topic? And either way, should that topic list
>> all or none of the universes it belongs to? If all, then we
>> might need to stop having the Species property on Fictional
>> Character list Universes that contain it as a disambiguator.
>> 	
>> 	What do you think?
>> 	Jeff
>> 	
>>
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>>
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